By the numbers: 2 years after first case, see the pandemic’s toll in Lexington
730 days. 91,000 cases. 564 deaths.
Tuesday marked a somber anniversary – two years since the initial COVID-19 case was confirmed in Lexington. This year, the anniversary comes as new cases are trending downward, both in Lexington and across the state, following the omicron surge.
But that news may be of little comfort to the families of the more than 14,000 Kentuckians who have died of COVID-19.
Monday, Gov. Andy Beshear and state officials announced changes to how they would release COVID data, a move triggered by six weeks of declines across new cases, Kentucky’s positivity rate and hospitalizations.
“What we see is continued fall and steady decline,” Gov. Beshear said during a press conference. “All of the metrics for COVID continue to decline.”
Monday, the state’s positivity rate fell to 6.04%, the lowest since Nov. 16 and a sharp fall from its peak around Jan. 23, as the omicron variant ripped through the state.
In Fayette County, where health officials have recorded more than 91,000 cases since the onset of the pandemic, things are headed in the right direction, though the county is still ranked as “high” under the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new COVID-19 community levels.
“We are cautiously optimistic that we will get past the pandemic stage,” Lexington-Fayette County Health Department communications officer Kevin Hall said Tuesday. “But anytime that we have seen a lull in numbers and the community rolls back too much into that comfortable level, things skyrocket.”
New confirmed cases in the county in 2022 – totaling 33,323 as of the end of February – have already surpassed all cases for calendar 2021. But that flood of new cases, particularly in January, has already started to recede.
“If you look at where we are right now, we have about 60 new cases a day. It is definitely trending much, much lower,” Hall said, comparing that to an estimated peak of around 1,000 new cases a day the first month of the 2022.
A pandemic by the numbers
To date, Lexington has counted 91,474 total cases and 564 deaths. Those figures are included in the broader view of COVID-19 in Kentucky, where state officials have tallied nearly 1.3 million cases, and 14,097 residents have succumb to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Over the course of the pandemic, the outlook has drastically changed as well, Hall noted. For the first year, public health officials battled the unknowns of a virus while awaiting a much hoped-for vaccine. Then came year two, when more was known about COVID-19, but officials instead faced a wave of misinformation around the shot itself.
“That’s one of the biggest differences between year one and year two is that in year two, there was…just having the struggle of knowing we have this tool that is available that can help protect so many people … but people aren’t taking the steps to do it,” he said.
Some of the incorrect information was spread unintentionally, some part of a concerted campaigns, but regardless, Hall said the department remains ready to answer questions about the vaccine and help individuals feel comfortable making personal health decisions.
In short, the vaccine remains safe and effective at preventing serious illness caused by COVID-19, Hall said.
In Fayette County, nearly 77% of the population has at least one dose, according to Kentucky Public Health. That figure includes the roughly 200 individuals who attended the county’s first vaccination clinic Dec. 23, 2020 – a bright spot of the pandemic Hall often looks back on.
“And it was a true celebration,” he said of the event. “It was…it was pretty common to hear people, our staff, say ‘this is the first time I’ve felt happy in months.’”
In recent weeks, vaccinations have largely stalled in Fayette County and throughout the state, with just 56% of all Kentuckians fully vaccinated. That’s well below the national rate of 65.1%, per the CDC.
For LFCHD officials, increasing vaccinations among children will be key in the coming year, as well as U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the shot for those ages 6 months to 4 years of age. To reach those groups, Hall said it will be critical to educate caregivers on the vaccine.
For the time being, the department’s COVID-19 hotline will remain operational at 859-899-2222, and the charge moving forward will be continued vaccinations to allow the transition to an endemic.
“As Lexington moves into its third year of this pandemic, we continue to encourage more people to get vaccinated, including keeping up to date with vaccine boosters , to provide the best possible protection against serious illness,” Commissioner of Health Dr. Joel McCullough said in a statement.